Title
Do Spirals Effect the Stroop Effect
Problem Scenario
I am testing this because what if a spiral really does change the outcome of the Stroop effect. If the outcome changes when someone changes the spiral that would be really cool because then that would prove that different writing styles affect reading speed. I thought of this for my science fair project because I went home and I looked for science fair projects and when I got sidetracked I was seeing how fast I could complete this and I thought I wonder if I can spin an idea for Science Fair off of this. I went on Google and found out the real name of the test and I was thinking and I was running through different ideas and I thought of the spirals.

Broad Question

Does a spiral effect the outcome of the Stroop effect.

Specific Question

Will a counterclockwise spiral change the outcome of the Stroop effect compared to a clockwise spiral.

Hypothesis

I hypothesize that a counterclockwise spiral will affect the outcome of the Stroop effect compared to a clockwise spiral.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables:

Variables	Type of Variable (Independent, dependent, control)
Time Differential between Test 1 and 2	Dependent
Stroop Effect test 1 Directions of Spiral	Independent
Stroop Effect test 2 Directions of Spiral	Independent
Pattern of the Test 2 etc. red, green, yellow, black, white, purple	Control
Pattern of Test 1 etc. red, yellow, blue, black, green, purple	Control
Age group male compared to female	Dependent
Number of words	Controls
Spaces Between Words	Control

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation
Stroop Effect: In psychological, the Stroop Effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. When the name of a color (e.g., "blue," "green," or "red") is printed in a color not represented by the name (e.g., the word "red" printed in blue ink instead of red ink), naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the color of the ink matches the name of the color
Differential: A difference between amounts of things
Variable: An element, feature, or factor that is liable to vary of change
Test 1: Red, Black, Blue, Green, Purple........etc.
Test 2: Green, Black, Blue, Yellow, White........etc.

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General Plan

I will take five different gender middle school students and have them read out the two tests of the Stroop effect going in different spirals. Then I will take the times of test 1 counterclockwise and test 2 counterclockwise and then compare test 1 clockwise and compare them to test 2 clockwise. I will then put the data into an excel graph and make a graph.

Potential Problems And Solutions

More then 9+ hours of sleep the night before
No Caffeine!
Make sure I have the Same Number of Words
Capitals or No Capitals: Capitals

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

None

Experimental Design

What is your experimental unit?

One Person

Number Of Trials:

20

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:

5 Subjects for Each

Number of Observations:

40

When data will be collected

February 4th through March 1st

Where will data be collected?:

In Mr. Biche's Science Classroom

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
Lab Notebook	1	Staples	$5.00 or less
Timer	1	I own One	$0.00
Paper	5 sheets of paper	Staples or My Own	$0.00
Ink	One Cartridge	My House	$0.00
Poster Board	1	Staples or Mr. Biche	$5.00
Pencil	1	I Own One	$0.00
Computer	1	I Own One	$0.00
Adobe Illustrator	1 Free Trial	It's Free	$0.00

Detailed Procedure

1. I will go on Adobe Acrobat and make a Stroop Effect pattern, test 1 and test 2 and put one with a Counterclockwise spiral and one with a Clockwise spiral and print them both out.
2. I will go to school and get five girls and five boys to read both of the tests out loud, (test 1 counterclockwise, test 1 clockwise, test 2 counterclockwise, and test 2 clockwise) and I will time them and record the times for all four tests.
3. I will then figure out the time differential between test 1 counterclockwise and test 2 counterclockwise spiral. I will then find the time differential for test 1 clockwise spiral and test 2 clockwise spiral.
4. Once I find the time differential I will put the data into an excel graph and create a graph of the time differential.

Diagram

Photo List

People Being Tested
The Actual Tests

Time Line

February 1, Procedure, Timeline, and Photo List Complete
February 4, Begin Experiments No Later Then
March 1, Experiments Completed By
March 7, Analysis
March 15, Discussion and Background
March 15, Wiki Complete
March 22, Poster Complete
March 29, KMS Science Fair

Data Table

Test	Male 1	Male 2	Male 3	Male 4	Male 5	Female 1	Female 2	Female 3	Female 4	Female 5
Test 1 CC
Test 1 C
Test 2 CC
Test 2 C

CC= Counterclockwise C= Clockwise

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Data Analysis-

All Raw Data

Mistakes Data

Mistakes	Male 1	Male 2	Male 3	Male 4	Male 5	Female 1	Female 2	Female 3	Female 4	Female 5
ST1CC/C	3	0	1	1	0	0	2	1	0	-2
ST2CC/C	0	1	0	-2	2	1	-2	0	-4	0

Time Data

Test	Male 1	Male 2	Male 3	Male 4	Male 5	Female 1	Female 2	Female 3	Female 4	Female 5
ST1C/CC	0	-1	-1	0	0	-2	-3	-1	0	1
ST2C/CC	3	-6	-8	-8	16	-1	0	-3	-3	2

Graphs


The graphs show that most of the people took less time on the counterclockwise spiral than the clockwise and most people either had a bad time on the counterclockwise or the clockwise tests. One thing that I noticed for the mistakes for test 2 is that all the people that messed up always messed up on the purple, gray. I think that this happened because the color switch from the word gray coming right after the color gray.

Photos

A Person Being Tested and Me Recording The Data

Another Person Being Tested
Results

During my experiment, I recorded the times of middle school students reading off words off of the Stroop Effect in a spiral pattern. The Stroop Effect is a pattern in which the actual writing of the word is printed off in a different color then the text says. I noticed that on the first test there was really a one or two second difference and that on the second test the difference between counterclockwise and clockwise was really big or no difference at all. I also noticed that the mistake differential for test 1 and test 2 was really big. While most people were testing they would be going fine until they made their first mistake and then they would start making a lot of mistakes after that. Most people would have the most trouble with the Test 2 Counterclockwise. I continued my experiment until I had tested five girls and five boys. Then I took the data and subtracted the Stroop Test 1 Counterclockwise from Stroop Test 1 Clockwise, I also subtracted Stroop Test 2 Counterclockwise from Stroop Test 2 Clockwise.

Conclusion

Because I hypothesized that a Counterclockwise spiral will affect the outcome of the Stroop Effect compared to a Clockwise spiral I have to reject my hypothesis because my results say that the clockwise pattern took more time than the counterclockwise spiral most of the time. Such as Male 4 and Male 3 who both took 8 more second on the clockwise spiral then on the counterclockwise. Another example is that out of all the tests, 15 out of 20 took longer on the clockwise spiral than on the counterclockwise.

Discussion

After I completed my experiment I thought of ways I could improve upon my tests. Some ways I thought of were testing different age groups, I think this would change the results because older people might take a longer time to process the colors of the ink. Another thing that could be improved upon is my definition of a mistake, I could also record the spots in which they messed up, if they all messed up in one spot then I could record that and figure out why they messed up in they spot. Some more thing I could improve upon is like I what color people have the most trouble with and then see what that does and try to figure out why that color effects them. I didn't find any mistakes or problems in my data. My data answered my question, does a counterclockwise spiral affect the outcome compared to a clockwise spiral.
Benefit to Community and/or Science

Background Research

References

Abstract

For my experiment I took 10 middle school kids and had them read out the Stroop Effect, the Stroop Effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. When the name of a color (e.g., "blue," "green," or "red") is printed in a color not represented by the name (e.g., the word "red" printed in blue ink instead of red ink), naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the color of the ink matches the name of the color.
The thing was, for my project I had the Stroop Effect in a spiral pattern. The spirals were going counterclockwise and clockwise. I found that most people messed up on the counterclockwise Stroop Test 2, I think that's because A.) A counterclockwise spiral is hard to read off of anyways, and B.) The color and text differences make it even harder to read. Another thing I found is that the girls usually took less time than the boys. The girls also had less mistakes in total compared to the girls. A few other things I found were that the easiest test was the Stroop Test 1 clockwise, I think that is because that is the way we are used to reading, in a clockwise fashion.